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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
JENSEN: What Should NASCAR Do?
I have watched the events of the past two months in NASCAR with a mixture of sadness and frustration, the carnage has been epic...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted January 05, 2009   Harrisburg, North Carolina
Bill Davis sold majority interest in Bill Davis Racing as well as Triad Racing Development. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

Like many of you, I have watched the events of the past two months in NASCAR with a mixture of sadness and frustration as team after team was forced to merge, scale back and/or layoff employees because of a lack of sponsorship dollars.

The carnage has been epic:

Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates merged.

The Wood Brothers cut back to a 12-race schedule.

Bill Davis Racing was sold.

Michael Waltrip Racing will prepare cars for JTG Daugherty Racing, which will run out of the MWR shops.

And most recently, Petty Enterprises apparently will cease to field a team for the first time since 1949, as it attempts to work out a “merger” of some sorts with Gillett Evernham Motorsports.

Among the drivers, former NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion Bobby Labonte, Elliott Sadler, Joe Nemechek, Kyle Petty and reigning Raybestos Rookie of the Year Regan Smith were released and are looking for rides.

With the start of Daytona Speedweeks a mere five weeks away, some teams have not finalized sponsor-driver-crew-chief alignments, or even how many cars they are going to run.

The Sprint Cup Series today has four teams — Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Richard Childress Racing and Roush Fenway Racing — who collectively field 16 full-time, fully sponsored cars. That total of 16 represents about half the number of fully sponsored teams in the series.

Without question, the perfect storm of economic conditions has ripped through the NASCAR community like a fiscal tornado in a trailer park, devastating teams and the hundreds of employees who have lost their jobs as a result.

All of which begs a fundamental question: What, if anything, should NASCAR do about this?


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